Darren65 Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 I love using VideoPad, it is so intuitive, but my problems are with exporting to mp4. I would like advice about which specific settings to use. I normally use resolution: 1280x720 Compressor: mpeg Video quality: default Lossless export: autodetect VRF: Max 29.970 But it is not as clear a resolution as I would like. But if I use a higher setting it often creates a file that is nearly 900MB ! I create videos that combine still images with some video, but usually no more than 12 minutes long. If I use H264 instead of mpeg it triples the size of the file. Could you advice me on export settings that create a good quality result but without resulting in such a huge file? Just to clarify I use a Macbook, so use macOS High Sierra, rather than Windows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borate Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 Test AVI format with the MPEG4 compressor. Try different compression settings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren65 Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 Many thanks, although I should have clarified that I use a macbook which doesn't seem to automatically recognise .avi format. I will edit my original post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borate Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 AVI should be an available export format in the Mac version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren65 Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 Thank you. Yes you are right. I can export it. It's only that .avi doesn't want to 'play' on my Mac without a 3rd party convertor, so i can't check the quality of it. It tries to convert and then gives up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borate Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 Upload an exported file that doesn't play well to a free server, get a public, non-restricted, shared link and post it here. Someone will check it out. There should be several compressor and quality options available in the export window. Test them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren65 Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 Thank you, I will do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janusz_wol Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 Hi, According to what says about MPEG-4 vs H264, the latter one is compressing 1,5-2 times better with at least same quality. Your problem might be that you leave to VP to decide about the quality - the default value is rather high. As borate already said, try lower settings. You can check bitrate of your MPEG-4 compressed video and put the same bitrate in Export - File format - Video Quality/Bitrate. If you choose H264 with same bitrate as MPEG-4, you should get same file size but better quality! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren65 Posted July 28, 2020 Author Share Posted July 28, 2020 Thank you, although when I click on video quality/bitrate it just gives me the dropdown options of high quality down to very low quality. The bitrate is actually 1.08 mbit/s but I can't seem to be able to input that number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borate Posted July 28, 2020 Share Posted July 28, 2020 There are a number of bitrate options for H264 and MPEG4, using the mp4 container. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren65 Posted July 29, 2020 Author Share Posted July 29, 2020 Thank you so much for your reply. I clearly didn't scroll down far enough! Much appreciated. Interesting though, with even using these settings that it results in a file that's over 500MB. That still seems very large for a 14 minute video (with a few images added). As I've said, using the mpeg4 compressor does reduce the size, but the quality is nowhere near as good as using H264. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borate Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 Upload and share a twelve-minute project and someone will play with it to see what file sizes result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren65 Posted July 29, 2020 Author Share Posted July 29, 2020 Thank you, will do. Do you want it sent as a vpj project (with attachments? Otherwise, I guess it's not playable by you?) and if so could you tell me where to upload it to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borate Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 Just follow the 4-step instructions above. That folder will include the VPJ + all source files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren65 Posted July 30, 2020 Author Share Posted July 30, 2020 Thank you. The link is here (dropbox). Hoping you are able to access the files. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/c2h972b1m92fm2g/AACAZTID9eV-KbPxtnTWzvcya?dl=0 With this i originally created a file with H264 that was around 800MB! I'm sure it can be reduced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borate Posted July 30, 2020 Share Posted July 30, 2020 Mp4 export using H264 defaults (including suggested frame rate) in Windows produced a file of 264 to 410MB on several runs. The PAL (25fps) export was 390. Mp4 export using the MPEG4 compressor chalked up 249. AVI export using MPEG4 resulted in 266. Each test used version 8.63 at1280 x 720. Output quality was consistent with the source files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren65 Posted July 30, 2020 Author Share Posted July 30, 2020 Thank you so much for looking at this for me. However, I have just exported this same file with these settings below and it has resulted in a file 810.4 MB ! Preset: Custom. Compressor: H264. Default Quality. Lossless export: auto detect. Resolution: 1280x720. Variable Frame rate (Max 25fps) It says estimated file size is 411.05. But, as I say, the resulting export was approx twice that size! Using the mpeg4 compressor it estimates 164.42MB and the resulting export is 252.6MB. (quality not as good as H264 though) Both times big difference in estimate and actual size. And something is clearly going amiss in the exporting, as 810MB is too large. I'm using the non-commercial 8.60 version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borate Posted July 30, 2020 Share Posted July 30, 2020 Estimates are historically inaccurate. Can't test MAC exports here, but the Windows 10, VP version 8.65 (beta) mp4/H264/45 fps result is 412MB. PAL was 392. As suggested by janusz_wol, try lower quality/bitrates to see if they sacrifice too much quality. Here, low and medium quality PAL came in at 82MB and 190 respectively. Considering that the source wasn't HD, the medium rate looks quite acceptable here ... but that's a subjective judgment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren65 Posted July 30, 2020 Author Share Posted July 30, 2020 Thank you. However, I'm not sure what 'PAL was 392' refers to or how to access that; although that's my ignorance, apologies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borate Posted July 30, 2020 Share Posted July 30, 2020 392 was the resulting file size when the mp4 export was at 25fps (PAL). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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